Tree of Assets

My fall season started while at the Ignatius Jesuit Centre of Guelph, first coordinating a five day horticultural therapy practical training, directly followed by the Canadian Horticultural Therapy Association conference and annual general meeting.  Magnificent golden days enriched this flurry of activity.

The Home Farm Horticultural Therapy Practical Training was hosted at the Julien Project, a charitable organization using social and therapeutic gardening on the Ignatius Jesuit Centre property.  Seven students, from different parts of Ontario and even an American visitor, came to the Project for an intense week of hands on learning.  The site was ideal in that it provided a  space to work directly with a diversity of populations in both a protected courtyard and field production plot in the community garden.  There were lots of opportunities for experimenting with various activities, including wreath making, vegetable harvesting and creating seed mosaics and then a chance to debrief as a group the experience.

We also had the chance to visit a range of exemplary sites,  from hospitals to farms, using  gardening and nature for health promotion.  The context and scale was always different but overall, students were most blown away by the passion of the individuals working at all these places.

For me personally, it was a joy to be able to share much of what I have acquired since I started on my own horticultural therapy journey and to introduce students to the Julien Project, a site where I have gained so much by volunteering with program delivery and now on the Board of Directors.  The Julien Project has a vision to be a national teaching site for therapeutic gardening and horticultural therapy and the education week launched that work.  It was also a great pleasure to work with Christine Pollard and Sharon Stewart, my teachers and mentors, to offer this program.  The generous spirits of the students who participated made this an invaluable experience for us all.  Thank you to all the risk takers…

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I also sit on the Board of the Canadian Horticultural Therapy Association and was excited that the location of this year’s conference would allow our members to experience the Ignatius Jesuit Centre and also be introduced more fully to the Julien Project.  It was great to see how many new people were in attendance wanting to learn about this field and get connected.  The Julien Project had a place to make a presentation at the conference about our process as a new organization building  towards becoming sustainable, fitting with this year’s larger environmental theme.  A reception held at the courtyard garden welcomed participants into this peaceful space.

On the Sunday, I made my own presentation about my area of passion and experience, children and youth and therapeutic horticulture.   I wanted to create an interactive environment to explore the current context around gardening for young people and the potential role of therapeutic horticulture in this work.  I believe their is a role to ensure that health promotion is more strongly incorporated and that the recognized health benefits move beyond the realm of obesity prevention.  It felt appropriate to be having a lively discussion in our own outdoor classroom.

*Photo credit: Margaret Nevett for CHTA presentation capture (above)

I recently had the opportunity to visit the South Riverdale Community Health Centre rooftop garden which includes a number of raised beds and recycled containers growing a variety of vegetables and herbs.  There is even a view of the CN Tower!  The Garden Club was busy seed saving, harvesting and preparing a beautiful fresh salad for lunch.  This approach to health promotion would be a valuable addition to all of our community health centres in Toronto.

At first everyone is a bit tentative about the technology but due to the ease of the set-up, quickly students are sold and we see true personalities being expressed online.  A true on-line learning community is established with a group of people who are interested in engaging on the same topic.  Thank you to all the first timers who took the risk to join us with this new venture.  We hope to see you in Module 2 (coming in April).  Thank you to Christine Pollard for providing another accessible horticultural therapy education platform and for allowing me to take part in the instruction and development of this exciting advancement for horticultural therapy in Canada and beyond.

*Be sure to check out the Home Farm Alumni News Blog, a place for horticultural therapy learners to contribute experiences.

I had the opportunity to present with Christine Pollard the HT 101 and HT 102 workshops, designed for those new to Horticultural Therapy (HT) to get an introduction to the profession, where it is practiced and educational opportunities.  I spoke specifically about my own journey as a student working towards professional registration with the CHTA and touched on my experiences with the Home Farm Horticultural Therapy Certificate, volunteering with the Julien Project and my six month internship at Providence Farm.  I was pleased to find out afterwards that there were in fact a number of people at the conference who were looking to get started with their HT education and found the information provided very useful.  

The two day conference had a theme of “Building Connections in Horticultural Therapy” and saw presentations delivered by art therapists, music therapists, physiotherapist, recreation therapists, labyrinth facilitators, horticulturalists and landscape architects.

During the conference, the CHTA held its Annual General Meeting for members.  I was nominated for the position of Education Coordinator on the CHTA Board and officially joined at this time.  My focus will be to get Education Guidelines approved before 2009, which I believe is critical to building the credibility of our organization.  I look forward to working together with the Education Committee and Board of Directors to come to agreement on something we can all promote and be proud of.  Feedback from those invested in horticultural therapy in Canada is always welcomed.

As of August, the Alberta Children’s Hospital has hired my fellow classmate, from the Home Farm Horticultural Therapy Certificate, Rebecca Feasby, as a horticultural therapist.  Rebecca is currently working with the Impatient Group Program, Nephrology Clinic and the Dr. Gordon Townsend School on site. The work is part of a larger Therapeutic Arts Program that includes Music Therapy, Art Therapy and Horticultural Therapy.

Last Friday, before the CHTA Annual Conference, I was toured around the hospital by Becky, with Gwenn Fried from the Glass Garden at the Rusk Institute in New York.  We had a lot of fun preparing Greek salad, with students from the school, using fresh herbs from the raised containers (above) and the creative juices were visibly flowing in the Nephrology Clinic as patients began designing a future outdoor garden space.  The Children’s Orchard, right on hospital property, provided a tasty afternoon treat.

I was just beaming when I received an email update and photo last week from a friend and outstanding volunteer at Providence Farm, who has graciously taken over the coaching role of the running club since the completion of my internship.  The news came that the runners had made it to the first lookout point on Mount Tzouhalem and were rewarded with a great bird’s-eye view of the farm.  They are so very close to the original goal, established in the spring when we started running, to reach the cross on top of the mountain. I felt so proud hearing that the group had been able to sustain itself and of their continued uphill efforts.

The weekly running club was established to provide two young men with a healthy recreational activity and a tool to manage stress.  I was so impressed by their commitment to creating a team and supporting each other despite having very different physical abilities.  They learned to follow a routine, warm-up, run their hearts out, cool-down and stretch.  Within weeks of working out together, they were easily outrunning me and I had to start doing more coaching from the sidelines.  They ran on farm lanes and through wooded areas, each step becoming more familar with the surrounding land.  Running and horticultural therapy came together as there were many great opportunities for identifying various native plants along the way and we would bring back samples of plants unknown to look up in a local plant guide.

I started January on the farm picking lettuce and I’m finishing with a newly transplanted crop under way.